1. Statement of the Technical Field
The inventive arrangements relate to security tags attachable to articles of merchandise, and more particularly a security tag having an improved locking mechanism providing greater defeat resistance.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic article surveillance (EAS) systems are well known in the art and are used for inventory control and to prevent theft and similar unauthorized removal of articles from a controlled area. Typically, in such systems a system transmitter and a system receiver are used to establish a surveillance zone, which must be traversed by any article being removed from the controlled area.
An EAS tag is security tag affixed to each article and includes a marker or sensor adapted to interact with a signal being transmitted by the system transmitter into the surveillance zone. This interaction causes a further signal to be established in the surveillance zone, which further signal is received by the system receiver. Accordingly, upon movement of a tagged article through the surveillance zone, a signal will be received by the system receiver, identifying the unauthorized presence of the tagged article in the zone. The security tags are designed to be releasable only by a specially designed implement.
Security tags used in EAS systems often include a locking mechanism which serves to affix the tag to an article. The tag may be locked to the article itself, or the tag can be configured as mated components, which are attachable to one another with a portion of the article secured between the tag components. A common locking arrangement used in security tags is a magnetically-actuatable locking mechanism. These types of security tags use a magnet to unlock the locking mechanism. The magnet interacts with the magnetic components in the lock and actuates such magnetic components to unlock the mechanism.